“I don't want to hear it,” Shadd growled. “You're supposed to be a communications wizard. Prove it!”

Scott grimaced but bent back to his work. His curses rose in a regular stream while Shadd busied himself checking the locks on the doors. At the back entrance, he was sliding a pair of file cabinets across the door when a subgun suddenly barked outside the chamber.

“Damn!” Shadd muttered. Somebody had slipped up, or else they'd found the Precentor's body. Either way, their penetration had been discovered.

An alarm began to sound as Shadd bolted up the stairs to the catwalk. He halted beside the window looking out over the inner court. The firing was coming from that direction. Careful to minimize his exposure, Shadd slid open the shutters.

Searchlights were sweeping the grounds. In their stark light, Shadd could see ComStar troopers and Kuritans trying to force their way across the courtyard. His team was laying down a withering fire with their silenced weapons. The sounds of the attackers' guns and the hooting alarm completely covered any sound those weapons were making. Shadd could not tell how many of his men were holding the entrance.

Shadd called down to Scott. “You've just been put on deadline, wizard.”

“It had better not be a short one,” Scott replied. His voice echoed out of the cabinet where he had stuck his head.

Returning his attention to the courtyard, Shadd spotted a trio of Draconians moving along the far colonnade, well on their way to achieving a flanking position. From the angle, Shadd could tell that the Snakes were out of line-of-sight from the entrance his men guarded. He swung into the window, fired a burst at the runners, and ducked back as soon as he lifted his finger from the trigger.

When no slugs came searching for him, he knew that the flash suppressor on his Ceres Arms Ranger had done its job. None of the enemy had marked his position. He risked a look to check the results of his fire. Two of the runners had dropped, sprawling. The third was skittering back the way he had come. The defense of the entrance was secure for a while longer.

Scott's shout of triumph brought Shadd around in time to see lights flicker, then stabilize into a steady glow along the control boards of the Hyper-Pulse Generator. A whine began that climbed in a steady tone before dropping into a steady hum.

“It's ready,” the Tech Chief announced with satisfaction. “What about the codes?”

“Bypassed them.”

“Then send the message. Exactly as the Colonel gave it to us. Not a word out of place.”

“I'm not a novice, Shadd,” Scott grumbled, turning to the keyboard.

With the lull in the fighting outside, Shadd listened to the clack of the keys that seemed to mark time like the ticking of some ancient clock. But time was in short supply. Every passing moment reduced the strike force's chance of escaping from the compound.

The crackling roar of a plasma flamer echoed across the courtyard, announcing the renewal of combat.

Shadd looked out the window to see the upper body of a BattleMech visible above the roof of the outer building. Silhouetted in the predawn light, the machine resembled a headless scarecrow. Shadd recognized the shape as that of a Vulcan,a fearsome antipersonnel 'Mech.

When the machine's right-arm flamer belched a second burst of plasma, the backflash lit its torso. Shadd recognized the symbol that decorated the 'Mech's left chest as the black dragon of House Kurita. So, the Snakes had raised the ante.

The Vulcan'splasma burst scorched everything it did not set aflame. Screams came from the entryway. Good men were dying.

Kurita soldiers came boiling from the outer building. Nothing slowed them as they rushed across the courtyard. No gunfire. No grenades. His men at the entrance to the generator building were dead. Shadd hoped that some had been able to retreat deeper into the building and take up a new defensive position where the 'Mech couldn't reach them. If they had, the Snakes wouldn't winkle them out easily. The commandos would trade their lives for time.

The lights on the HPG console dimmed briefly with the power surge as the generator sent its interstellar pulse into space. Shadd found the Tech Chief grinning in pleasure, oblivious to his surroundings. Shadd could do nothing but shake his head.

The commando leader keyed his comm unit. “Muhammad to base.”

The response was immediate. “Go ahead, Muhammad,” said Jaime Wolf.

“It's a Snake nest here. 'Mechs too. Don't expect us home.”

“Success?”

“The word it out, Colonel. Get the people out, too.”

“You will be remembered in the halls.”

Shadd cut the circuit. The men of Seventh Kommando lived and died in darkness and deception. Remembered in the halls, the Colonel had said. He couldn't ask for more. Clicking a fresh magazine into the Ranger, he walked to the door to await the assault.

44

Dragoon Administrative HQ, Cerant, An Ting

Galedon Military District, Draconis Combine

3 January 3028

 

Dechan chewed at his thumbnail. In the long hours since the Hegira vote, the tension of waiting had soured his stomach. Enforced idleness had never sat well with him. He longed to do something ... anything. What he really wanted was to be in the cockpit of his Shadow Hawkchasing Snakes, but the Colonel's order was to stay put. Besides, his 'Mech was at Boupeig barracks halfway across Cerant, and the mob still roamed the streets.

He could see Wolf across the planning room. The Colonel's shoulders were slumped with fatigue as he took a break from the almost continuous negotiations with the terrorists. Negotiations! A strange word to use for political speeches. The criminals holding the Hephaestusdidn't seem interested in listening at all. They wanted to talk, condemning the Dragoons and exclaiming the virtues of the Dragon. It seemed to Dechan that they would rather discuss the games on Solaris than actually work out terms.

He didn't envy Wolf. The Colonel's nerves must be stretched tighter than any Dragoon's in the headquarters. After all, he was in the decision-making slot.

Two hours ago, a Dragoon DropShip's orbit had brought it near the station. After conducting a visual scan, the crew had confirmed Major Quo's assertion that members of Seventh Kommando were on the hull of the Hephaestus.That is, they'd been able to confirm that spacesuited figures were working their way toward the command section. When the ship had tried to radio the figures, the terrorists had murdered one of the hostages and threatened more deaths if any more transmissions were beamed at the station. Wolf had forbidden further attempts to communicate with the men on the surface of the station.

Dragoon hopes had risen with the sighting of those figures. It meant that at least some of what Major Quo had tried to tell them was true. If the spacesuited figures really were members of the Seventh, things might not be as bad as they seemed.

Operation Recovery was put on hold when Wolf decided that the commandos—if commandos they were—had a better chance of rescuing the hostages than would a full-scale assault. If a Dragoon DropShip moved into position to attack the station, it would be in direct defiance of the Kurita Command System and might provoke a military reaction. Wolf still had hopes of limiting the incident. How could he be blamed for actions of any commandos already on the station?

Wolf's orders meant that there was little to do at the command center, except to wait, updating plans as bits of new information arrived. That was even more true for Dechan, who was only a ‘MechJock, not a planner.

When the word had first come in from Shadd at the ComStar facility, there had been a flurry of activity. The cheers at his success died quickly, however, when he announced the Kurita assault. Everyone knew there was no way the commandos could survive it.